Posted on 08/12/2011 5:28:22 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners. There is not much garden news to report from East Central Mississippi this morning. I am just trying to keep everything watered and alive and picking a couple of peppers and a zucchini every once in awhile.
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I hope all your gardens are flourishing.
Sorry. Wish I could have prevented my problem with a pellet gun.
1” diameter hail probably wiped out my entire garden 8/9/11.
Melons, cucumbers totally defoliated. Almost all tomatoes knocked off of plants. Most peppers damaged. Pumpkin plants gone. Some corn blown down.
Not all, as I plant it in trenches and “hill it up” so I still think I will have a decent corn harvest, if it cools off. It has been so hot, the corn matures before the ears fill completely. I think it is a failure of the pollen to be fully effective.
After I watered them yesterday, we got a huge rain last night! No rain was predicted and there was not a cloud in the sky yesterday. I mowed all day (over very dry ground, which is why I set a sprinkler out in the veggie patch), and then came the deluge. I’m sure it doesn’t matter. Will add my last 2 bags of garden soil this afternoon. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter. The soil needs to go into that bed anyway.
Well, we see our neighbors (the farmer neighbors) since we have no relatives around here. We had a wild Siberian tiger at our fair this year. That was different, but I seemed to be the only one excited about it.
The tiger came with a “wild animal show”. I didn’t see the show, but I don’t think they ever allowed that tiger out and on the stage. There was absolutely no protection for the onlookers. I think that they just displayed this 15 month old tiger in its cage which was like a super large dog kennel.
She certainly was beautiful, however. I saw her every day, since her cage was positioned next to the parking lot as you entered. You could peek into her cage at the corners where the tarps covering the cage split open. Although there was a double fence around the display, it was just made out of cattle panels. That cat could have leapt that fence in a single bound, had she escaped her dage.
Well, Max is a large dog! I’m sure size makes a difference. :^)
My hometown paper’s garden editor wrote this piece about eating corn smut, the fungus on corn ears. I always have found his column interesting and still read it though I am 500 miles away now. This one seems a bit out there, but FR gardeners may prove me wrong, again.
http://blog.al.com/living-press-register/2011/08/delicious_corn_smut_makes_a_bi.html
Well, that is the most colorfully and artfully rendered discussion of corn smut I’ve ever read! Thank you for the information. Did you remember that my corn patch was infected with smut last year? It was really disgusting, and I couldn’t have eaten it. I won’t do well in survival training.
Trinidad is a great place to camp as there is so much to see north or south. Did you hike down to Agate Beach and look for agates? Troy Nicolini is the head of the local weather station and is a great guy and has done a lot to prepare us all for the eventual Tsunami. His wife twists my wife’s hair at the Juniper Beauty Saloon
I dug a hill of Yukon Gold and a hill of Red Gold for my granddaughter yesterday and they filled a plastic grocery bag. Must have been 6 or 7 pounds...
Just got in late last night from vacation. Garden is about the same. We did get some rain while I was gone.
Hubby gathered vine peaches and green beans. Still no tomatoes. We do have a few green ones. Most of the flowers did not set fruit during the heat wave.
Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Many plants will not grow well within 50 feet of the drip line of a walnut tree. Tomatoes for one. Can not remember the others.
Corn, beans, and melons are tolerant of walnut toxicity. Can’t remember the rest.
Yikes, I'm in Connecticut. I could be digging them out of the snow if I have to wait till Christmas.
I’m trying to remember where we went. Down to the Trinidad harbor for lunch, to the Trees Of Mystery because we had never been there before, Patrick’s Point (of course), took a lot of pictures of the big migrating Elk herd there, went to Crescent City and walked around downtown. Clam Beach, didn’t make it to Agate Beach.
It was a nice 2 days and got us out of the 110 degree heat of Redding.
Actually; a couple of good frosts really improves the flavor.
We grew our tomatoes last year in two “topsy turvey” planters. Surprising, it worked pretty well and didn’t take up any garden space. My wife planted tomatoes this year in the raised garden and they are doing fine.
Basil is in that bed and in several other beds. Probably not enough, though.
I think Brussel Sprouts take about 7 months..seriously..
Weather has not been cooperative at all this year..
Too much early, too little late and then hail.
Sorry about the hail storm.
Saw news there was rain today around DFW. Was hoping to read here that someone(s) got some relief.
So I have this Black Beauty Eggplant, which I actually planted about a year ago for last fall, but it never really went anywhere until this summer. I got three big fruits off of it, then nothing. There’s several dozen blossoms on it. I’ve read about hand pollination but that hasn’t produced anything.
The seed package says “produces 5 to 7” fruit. I assumed this meant “at a time”. But now I’m starting to wonder, is there such a thing as a determinate variety of eggplant? And if that’s what I have, why is it still blossoming? Is is just messing with me?
I don’t have a lot of room in the garden (massive understatement), and this thing is huge. If I need to cut bait, now is the time. But if not, I’d love to get it producing again. Anyone point me in the right direction here?
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